8 Things You Must Know if You Don't Want to Die at the Beach

The beach is a simple place where people go to relax, escape their obligations and have painful, gritty sex under the boardwalk. But bathers are often unprepared for how crowded the beach can be.

Consider the typical beachgoer, whom we'll call "Bill" because his real name is too ethnic. Bill packs his automobile full of supplies and drives to the shore, where he discovers that the lines are too long! In sight of his goal, Bill watches as government officials begin rationing off the sea. Sadly, there is not enough ocean left for him, and a chance for a wonderful memory instead becomes:

GettyOn a good day, the zombies preoccupy the sharks

Our friend Bill went home unbeachified because he hadn't planned accordingly. Don't let this happen to you. Use the easy guide below to get the most out of your trip to the shore. Whether you're a veteran beach dude or a lousy tourist, you will learn how to maximize third-quarter fun revenues and reallocate blue-chip pleasures to key happiness areas. By the time you've squeezed the last drop of joy from your experience, it will make you sick to even look at a beach!

NOTE: Bill later killed himself.

#8. Background

What IS the beach exactly? Geographers would have us believe it's any place where a body of water meets the land in an even fashion. Nice try, geographers ... or should I call you science-warlocks? Your hocus-pocus can never pin down the true spirit of the beach. It belongs to a class of undefinable mysteries like true love, the Holy Spirit and where Missouri is.

Wikipedia wants to go to thereThe beach is like ... inside all of us, man

The term "beach" comes from the Swedish word "boorkeldumpf," which means "A place where fish pee and it is very cold." If you ever meet a Swedish model, you can use this trivia to impress her with your knowledge of her people, but you will probably never meet a Swedess, unless you go to the really good parties.

Beaches have been used by human beings for dozens upon dozens of years...as far back as the 3rd century, when Roman emperor Balbinus Baggum Hobbicta declared that the ocean was no longer allowed to crash into rocky cliffs. The sea rebelled, but was quickly put down by the Roman Aqua Legion, who stabbed it with sword and spear until ocean yielded to man's will. Hundreds of beaches were created by this brutal method of conquest. Ironically, Italians are no longer allowed at many of the beaches their ancestors forged because Italy's coastline is overrun with private resorts owned by Visigoths.

#7. What Kind of Beach Am I On?

There are seven kinds of beach. (One contains buried treasure! Can you guess which?)

Public beach: This is where you go to step in goose poop and see fat people wearing gold. Expect at least one sleazy teenager taking pictures of girls barely into high school. The great thing about public beaches is that every few seconds you can buy a cold drink to relax and take your mind off of the endless parade of vendors bellowing in your ear about cold drinks.

Private beach: Old people go here to enjoy the view without ever taking a swim.

Yacht club: If your beach gear includes full-length trousers, you are doing it wrong, and no advice can save you, people I grew up with in Connecticut.

But Wikipedia knows that's really New JerseyWheee. Look at how much fun we're having?

Yacht clubs are mostly excuses for upper-middle-class types to swig Heineken together in the evening. By day, they stay inside and chart courses or repair the boat. If you do the math, most people's yearly maintenance and storage on a boat costs them about $550 for every time they actually take it out for a sail. That said, you can have the beach to yourself here, since everyone's busy trying to figure out how a tiller works.

Wikipedia keeps changing its mindFor the complete experience, imagine one speaker wearing a Mount Gay cap and the other in a Black Dog T-shirt

Crappy beach: Instead of sand, it has stones. The water's always cold, and the glory hole in the bathroom is almost never manned.

Paradise: A tropical beach where you can drink without leaving your seat, because if you did, the equatorial sun would explode you.

The good beach: This is usually a public beach so remote that the crowds and vendors don't bother with it. The snobs don't like it because anyone can go there. So it's pretty aces.

Symbolic beach: Poets tell us the beach is a metaphor for the unremembered depths of the human journey. But have you considered that it's also a metaphor for sex? Most things are, you know. Especially if your sex life is cold and gray and contains crabs.

Mostly the sea represents the thrilling unpredictability of life itself: the limitless horizon! The chance to make your own path in any direction and die there! To seek your fortune, and watch it be swept away by an unfeeling tide! These are the thrilling dooms promised us by the bounding main! Join us, won't you?

... No? Quite sensible of you, that.

Answer to Puzzler: Every beach has treasure! It was in your heart all along -- for you see, you learned that happy memories are the true wealth.

#6. Tips for a Fun Summer

To ensure a fun, safe summer, stick to the three Rs: rye whiskey, rampage, Redondo Beach jail. Yeesh, those are some lousy Rs. Let's come up with some better ones.

The most important thing is to avoid sunburn: With thy golden arrow, take aim and strike Helios from his chariot! Ha ha ha! Now YOU are the Sun God, Apollo!

If you miss with your arrow, or just don't feel like committing solicide, it's important to protect yourself from the sun, who will surely counterattack. Buy plenty of sunscreen, suntan lotion, sun oil, sunblock, motor oil, salad dressing, lard from a morose pig and the sweat of an Italian.

Mix ingredients in a portable blender for 34 to 57 minutes. When you're done, slather yourself with the gunk to protect yourself from the sun. It will begin to harden in minutes, and you will make lots of money as one of those living statue "performance" artists whose parents are ashamed of them.

GettyYou people are the worst. And by "you people" I mean anyone whose skin color is "precious mineral"

Now try to pick up your earnings. Surprise! You can't move! I tricked you. Yours will be a slow death, you uncreative panhandler. You can only watch, helpless, as a guy with a metal detector strolls by and swipes your money. Speaking of which -- if you're looking for a surfside hobby, a metal detector is a great way to turn a day at the beach into a day at work, while making up to $17 a day!

Anyway, for those of you with the decency to not become performance artists, make sure you apply sunscreen in hard-to-reach places, like an attractive woman. Even if you yourself are an attractive woman, find another one, and take turns running your soft, lotion-covered fingers over each other's supple skin. Film it. Now monetize that on the Internet. You just made a million bucks.

Slathering a bi-curious coed in creamy sunblock is a considerate act that makes the beach a better place for everybody. Let's think of more ways we can help others enjoy the scene. For example, is your last name Brody? Move to a landlocked state, or great white sharks will attack your fellow beachgoers in a series of increasingly bad movies.

The beach belongs to us all, and we must maintain it for each other. If you're a major corporation enjoying a day on the water, remember that other megaconglomerates need to overfish this bay, too. Only take just enough too much to leave plenty barely any left for your fellow eco-plunderers.

Sadly, not all corporations or bathers will be thoughtful. Don't tolerate their inconsiderate behavior. If a bully kicks sand in your face, gamble a stamp and order Charles Atlas' FREE book! It won't take long to see results, and then you can return confidently to the beach, where the bully's making time with your girl. WHAM! Now it's HIS turn to dry up and blow away! Sucker punch the bully's teeth down his throat. You'll be the hero of the beach, and hardly get arrested at all. Bonus: your faithless girlfriend will return when your violence proves it can move mountains or brutalize a human being. We call that love on this patch of sand, baby.

Charles Atlas Ltd. Inspires us allMac really came off as the aggressor in the end there

Finally, a word about alcohol: Drinking at the beach is fine, but know your limits. Switch to a lighter pure grain if you've punched more than three children or police officers.

Did you know that turtles often choke on plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish? If you see a bag blowing around, pick it up, and write "SO SORRY TURTLES NOT FOOD!!" on it. Our shelly friends will read the warning and avoid a deadly mistake. Don't fret if they ignore your words and die anyway. It is nature's way of dealing with turtle depression. Turtles are very long-lived, and must endure the cruel joke called life for sometimes hundreds of years. If you come across a turtle nest, stomp all the eggs before they hatch and spare them the agonies of existence. STOMP STOMP STOMPITY STOMP.

Good job! You care for nature enough to do the hard thing. Now if only there were some way to end our own pain!

#5. Taking It to the X-Treme!

For some people, an idle pleasure like destroying nascent turtles isn't enough. These people crave the "totally tubular" or "gnarly rad" rush of activities that can kill, or even embarrass, their daredevils. Here are some invigorating beach activities for you young people who consider yourselves "adventureteers."

Jet ski: An excellent way to get a pretty gal to wrap her arms around you, which is excitement enough for one day!

Parasailing: Most of the excitement is in that first second when you wonder if you're going to get dragged on your face across half a mile of water.

Snorkeling/Scuba diving: You know why Aquaman is lame? Because he's the only hero whose powers we can imitate. That said, this is a really fun way to enjoy the diversity of nature. Coral reefs are like the ocean's Tumblr feed: Every time you think you've seen everything, up pop another 10 beauties you never could have imagined.

Surfboard: This has a motor somewhere, right? No? Wow! To think that we live in an age when even a plank of wood can run on solar power.